Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
My Thoughts:
Noemí Taboada and her father receive a frantic and desperate letter from her newly married cousin who explains that she feels her life and sanity may be in danger. Noemi takes up the task to visit the Mexican high-mountain countryside and find out what's truly going on. As she arrives, though, she is both allured and repulsed by her cousin's Englishman husband, horrified at their father Howard Doyle who is decrepit both of body and mind, and High Place with its damp and fungal appearance and the nightmares she soon begins to dream...Is her cousin mad? What secrets and horrors lie beneath?
Noemi is a fantastic character. She's a socialite but one who thinks for herself and has a self-determination to see things through and get to the bottom of it all. I had to take breaks from the book because it was so disturbing in parts. The mood is dark and dank and damp and oppressive. She covers eugenics and colonialism and misogyny and patriarchy. But it all comes together for quite an ending. Go into this book without knowing much about it. It is a true Gothic horror from a fabulous writer. Near perfection.
Ms. Moreno-Garcia has also shared some highlights and quotes and insights from her book on Goodreads. So go check it out if you are interested in reading this one.
Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas
My Thoughts:
Yadriel's traditional family is having a hard time accepting his gender and therefore they don't think he's a brujo. To prove them wrong he ends up doing the ritual himself alongside his best friend and cousin Maritza. But the ghost he ends up summoning is neighborhood badboy Julian Diaz and not his murdered cousin. But Julian refuses to pass on until he sets a few things right in the real world and Yadriel sets out to help him. But it soon becomes apparent that not all is as it seems. No one can find Julian's body nor the body of his cousin. It's up to Yadriel, Maritza, and Julian to find out what's really going on.
This is a beautifully written tale of Yadriel coming into his own and accepting who he is. We get to learn all about his culture and el Dia de los Muertos. His relationship with his mother who died a little before the books begins is so poignant. The fraught relationship he has with his father and grandmother who are trying but aren't doing enough to accept him for who he is. And the relationship he begins to have with Julian is also beautiful to watch.
The audiobook was well-performed and enjoyed it all. There is even an interview between the author and the audiobook narrator that is fantastic at the end.
My Thoughts:
Two Black light-skinned twins take two very divergent paths. The Vignes sisters Desiree and Stella runaway as teenagers from their town of light-skinned Blacks. Desiree ends up marrying a Black man who abuses her. Her sister Stella decides to pass as White to live the "American Dream." She ends up marrying her boss and moves away and cuts of her family. Desiree flees her abusive marriage to come back home to Mallard with extremely dark daughter Jude. What happens when we flee our origins and become something different? Does it free us or bind us? Ms. Bennett weaves a beautiful story that lets us experience the answers to these questions.
The book is all about the characters and their experiences. This is a beautifully character-driven novel. Brit Bennett knocks it out of the park again. We need more voices such as hers.
Emma by Jane Austen
